\n<\/p>\n
A controversial loyalist parade down a nationalist street in Portadown has been temporarily injuncted after a high court judge urged all sides to \u201cstep back from the abyss\u201d and take responsible decisions for \u201cthe sake of everyone in Northern Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n
The ruling was made amid rising fears that a parade could unleash fresh sectarian violence.<\/p>\n
After a five-hour hearing at a special sitting of the high court, Justice Smyth issued an order temporarily suspending the parade, which was due to take place at 8am on Sunday, until a judicial review application can be fully heard.<\/p>\n
She has also suspended the determination by the Parades Commission on Friday that the event could take place, albeit with restrictions on numbers.<\/p>\n
However tensions remain with an appeal against her decision by loyalists to be heard at a second special hearing on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Smyth arrived at her conclusions after several attempts to coax the parties, the Loyalist Orange Order and the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition, to reach a voluntary agreement.<\/p>\n
After it was clear that was not possible, she said: \u201cThe level of mistrust between residents and Portadown Loyalist Lodge cannot be overstated. Neither side accepts any of the reassurances of the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
The march down Garvaghy Road has been banned for 28 years due to widespread sectarian violence in 1998 outside Drumcree church.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is also clear to me that this particular long-running dispute has the potential to escalate within Northern Ireland,\u201d Smyth said.<\/p>\n
The court was sitting on Saturday after a last-minute legal challenge by the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition.<\/p>\n
Smyth urged the parties to reach a voluntary agreement to delay the march, given few had time to digest the reasoning behind the commission\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
It was important \u201cto reach an agreement for the sake of everyone in Northern Ireland, not just for your sake\u201d to have the issues \u201cproperly aired\u201d so that \u201ceverybody knows they\u2019ve had a fair hearing\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBe big enough to step back from the abyss,\u201d she told the parties in court.<\/p>\n
This followed a high court ruling quashing the restrictions on the annual parade route.<\/p>\n
<\/span>People gathered outside Belfast high court on Saturday 26 September awaiting the decision by Justice Smyth over the planned Garvaghy Road march.<\/span> Photograph: Mark Marlow\/PA<\/p>\n The Portadown loyalist Orange Lodge was not represented at the hearing. But after a request from the judge for its view through the individual who had sought permission for the parade, the lodge made it clear it would not agree to suspending the procession.<\/p>\n The <\/strong>SDLP leader, Claire Hanna, said the parade plan was \u201cprovocative\u201d. She told residents she was \u201cso sorry\u201d that some \u201cbad faith actors\u201d were \u201cintent on reopening the hurt and the traumas of the past\u201d.<\/p>\n Fears of clashes increased on Saturday after a request to the commission for permission for a countermarch, a protest that, it was estimated, could be attended by up to 5,000 people, the court heard. That was later revised to 300.<\/p>\n On Friday night, the British prime minister, Andy Burnham, appealed to leaders to \u201cwork calmly\u201d through the weekend while the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Bryant, called for \u201ccool heads\u201d, saying Northern Ireland had \u201cwithstood many moments of sharp disagreement over the years\u201d and must do so again.<\/p>\n Before her ruling, Smyth asked the parties in court, including the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Parades Commission, to \u201cconsider carefully the very important issues to our society\u201d raised in this case, and the importance that they were dealt with properly given the \u201cimportance of this case to community relations\u201d.<\/p>\n She also noted that the issues of judicial review were of \u201csuch fundamental importance\u201d that it could be unwise to hold a full hearing without all the facts.<\/p>\n Democratic Unionist MP Carla Lockhart insisted nationalist residents on the road had \u201cnothing to fear\u201d from the march on Sunday, but Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald described the decision as \u201cutterly reckless\u201d.<\/p>\n The Parades Commission has placed a number of restrictions on the procession, including an 8am start and limiting the number of participants to 35 people, but not placing any restrictions on the route.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A controversial loyalist parade down a nationalist street in Portadown has been temporarily injuncted after a high court judge urged all sides to \u201cstep back from the abyss\u201d and take responsible decisions for \u201cthe sake of everyone in Northern Ireland\u201d. The ruling was made amid rising fears that a parade could unleash fresh sectarian violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[21339,160,83,25347,25346,4134,11244,2418,2203,1435,124,1377],"class_list":{"0":"post-52333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-belfast","9":"tag-court","10":"tag-decision","11":"tag-garvaghy","12":"tag-injuncts","13":"tag-irish","14":"tag-march","15":"tag-northern","16":"tag-orange","17":"tag-order","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-road"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}